E.D. Rodriguez – XIV

When I arrived, the lights were up
the ink on the banners had faded,
the pigment in the photos vaguely captured
history, the chairs were stacked,
the microphone was unplugged, busboys
cleaning up, balloons floated down in
the cavernous hall, each one popping
at the end of its fall, there was no
clinking of flutes, no strumming of strings,
the air was filled with pregnant silence,
a tomb of memory, adrift in a care not world.